In a move that will encourage banks to lend more for housing in large cities and make high value home loans cheaper, RBI has reduced the risk weightage on home loans above Rs 75 lakh to 50% from 75% earlier. In its monetary policy review, the RBI retained the repo rate at 6.25% and the reverse repo rate at 6%. It has also reduced the statutory liquidity ratio. Considering the importance of the housing sector and given its forward and backward linkages to the economy, it has been decided as a countercyclical measure, to reduce the risk weight on certain categories. It has also been decided to reduce the standard asset provisioning on such loans.